The art of snoozing and time management

As I have explained before I am a lawyer and although it is something I worked very hard to achieve I bizarrely forget that I am. You see the thing is when you plan to become a lawyer you kind of think that when you finally become one your whole life will change. First of all you will suddenly develop a maturity you never had, you will be stylish and look like Ally McBeale. You will be full of energy and have a real sense of purpose. You will sympathise when necessary and you will show strength of character when faced with what you blattantly can see is an injustice. You will probably regularly attend the gym and will be super organised and a whizz at time management.

The reality however is that you are exactly the same as you were before but people's expectations of your knowledge and ability increase. As for time management I am still useless. My main problem is the mornings. It's not because I don't wake up in time... actually who am I kidding? It's because I don't wake up in time! I snooze alarms for over an hour. One goes off at 7am (I groan and turn over)and the other at 7.10am. This is torture but one I have to put myself through. If I get out of bed by 8.20 I know I'll be late. Most mornings I get out of bed at 8.25am. When I was training and working in a firm I was lucky enough to live 15 miles away and on a very unreliable bus route. This meant I always had an excuse for being late for work. However I knew that people (you know the ones - the ones who get into work for 8.15am for no apparent reason... they are also the ones that never yawn in work and they always have their own mug for tea, teabags in a container in their desk and various treats of a low fat variety to eat during the day) generally didn't appreciate the fact that I was late. Truth was I could get the early bus and sleep all the way as I normally did anyway or I could get the bus that got me in after 9am and sleep all the way. The later bus allowed me to have an extra half hour in bed... you do the math!

When I went for my job interview for my first job as a qualified lawyer I arrived 45 minutes late for the interview due to bad traffic and not leaving myself enough time. They were very sympathetic to this and offered me the job anyway! My view from then on was they knew exactly what my faults were and they were prepared for me to be late every morning. And I was. Again I had an excuse because I lived 46 miles away. When I moved to the town where my firm was however it became a little more difficult to explain myself. Particularly when there was another woman who worked for us who was always late but she was also a darling of the company and everyone she worked with. She would come in with her basket on her arm and would hand out various vegetables that she had picked that morning. So she got away with it. I started to get noticed. When I pulled into the car park I knew how late I was by whether there was a parking space and whether or not the other late woman was already parked.

Imagine my alarm when this firm decided to send me on a time management course in London. The course started at 10 am so I knew I had to wake up early. Not to mention the fact I had to get the train which took about 2 hours and I had to find the venue. As I stormed through the door of the course where other simiarly useless time managers were seated and had arrived on time... I was roughly 2 and a half hours late! The course leader had the cheek to then seem disgusted! But I hadn't even done the course yet so how could I be expected to be a good time manager?! I was brazen in my lateness and sat down as they discussed how we all needed to allow ourselves enough time to get places. I spent the rest of the day pinching myself and drinking strong coffee in order to stay awake. I then left early (My god people don't judge me I had a train to catch!) with the time management course notes under my arm. I then fell asleep on the train and when I changed trains somehow managed to leave the course notes on the train. For the rest of the 2 years I worked at that firm I remained truthful to myself... I continued my late arrival and continued to deal with it in a brazen way! What other option did I have? If a time management course couldn't even inspire me or save me I was doomed to be a late arriver!

It is not that I like to be late or even enjoy rushing to catch planes, trains, arrive on time for a friend's wedding or generally being cursed until I arrive. I have every intention when I go to bed to be up on time and to be sitting at my desk before 9am. However as I struggle to wake up for the first hour of the day everything takes longer. I think this is a disease or certainly a condition and one which I can't control. Other people have other problems. But as I struggle to make up the time I've missed by being late I actually reckon I am more efficient at work... certainly in the moments I am not fighting sleep. This is because I am always behind schedule and revising lists that I have written to compensate for my late arrival! I even go to bed making plans in my head for things that I will do when I wake up early and have extra time... however I have never done any of those things but it doesn't mean I never will! I'm hoping that as I get older I will start to suffer from that whole wake up early, funny how I only need 4 hours sleep as I get older thing! That way I will have plenty of time and I will manage it well! Until I get older however you all just have to bear with me. I will be late... I even set my watch so that it says it is five minutes later than it is in a bid to scare myself when I look at the time. However the only thing this does is make me take the five minutes off and then think to myself it's ok I've got at least another five minutes!

We are always told life is too short and that we shouldn't sleep our lives away but if you like to sleep and you love a little snooze in the afternoon (for 20 minutes but you wake 3 hours later) then so what? If that is how you work, accept it... it's not fun fighting sleep all the time but for some us it is a reality! It's not professional, it's not lazy, it's not boring... it's just a love of sleep... it's just me! I'm sorry but when I'm old perhaps I will be living on just the 4 hours a night and then you will all be wishing I will just shut up and go to sleep! Alternatively I might be the old woman who drops off mid conversation and not realise... Who knows? Whichever one it is I just have to accept it...snoozing and me is the best combination!

Summer, sleep and weddings....

Having arrived home to another British Gas bill on my door step... for some reason my mum decided to post it on to me I had something to eat and then decided to lay down for a little snooze. This is one of my favourite pastimes and sometimes I think whole chunks of my life are missing to these little naps! I have always felt like a particularly tired person. Getting up is a constant effort and fighting off sleep for the rest of the day is the norm for me. Generally speaking I cannot talk to anyone until I have had at least 2 cups of tea in the morning or some other form of caffeine injection. I remember once my friend had come to sleep over my house for the first time. I was about 14 years old. When we woke up she started chattering happily. I stared at her with a disgusted look on my face and she continued talking! Why would anyone do that? As she tried to engage me with conversation I managed to ignore her for 30 minutes and then started to grunt to various things she said. I realise to some this may appear a little harsh but I normally have snotty words going through my head of irritation in the morning and it was either ignore, grunt or a tirade of abuse. After about 45 minutes I noticed she had left my room and gone downstairs. Relief washed over me as I realised I would no longer have to deal with her upbeat chirpiness until I was ready.... Then I could hear quiet sobs and the cooing of my mother comforting her... "I think I've upset Clare and she's not talking to me!".... "Now now don't be silly she's always like this in the mornings.. you didn't try to speak to her did you? Oh dear just leave her for a while until she wakes up!" Strangely she did come round many times after that but she never said a word until I spoke to her!

On the days my sister and I used to walk to school together we would often take turns closing our eyes whilst the other one led the way so that we could get some extra sleep and I often came home from school and had a little sleep before dinner. The down side of this of course was I was then totally irritated by people's eating habits at the table as I had not been awake for long enough. I wanted to eat in silence but my family insisted on chatting! I have at times contemplated what it would be like to push a yoghurt pot in my mother's face as she slowly spoons the yoghurt into her mouth in slow, even perfectly timed spoonfuls. Even now when I visit her if she eats a yoghurt she tends to leave the room. It's not that I'm a bully... it's just that I have a very low irritation threshold and one which when the criteria is met cannot be stopped.

I had one summer in particular that I remember my irritation levels were at their lowest. Everything annoyed me. I complained about everything from the bins that smelt all over the city when I was out shopping to the way my shoes always make my feet blister in the heat. It is not unusual for my ankles to swell up bulbously so that I look like an old woman with her ankles hanging over the straps of her sandals. This particular summer was the summer everyone I knew was getting married. I should add not only was everyone getting married but everyone was asking me to be bridesmaid. I spent the whole summer yo yo dieting to get into the range of 4 dresses that I was due to be wearing for the occassions which went from size 8 dresses to size 12 dress. The size 8 dress and size 12 dress weddings were about a month apart so I went from living off the sweat of a strawberry or the pip of a grape and having regular seaweed wraps which made me wee for 24 hours solidly to eating big macs and blocks of cheese whilst lying down and avoiding exercise in the space of a month. Every wedding was different. I had the catholic wedding of my sister where the priest kept saying my name instead of the brides and in which I wore a lilac dress in size 10, to the Quaker wedding where I was late by 30 minutes as our taxi had got lost and the first part of the wedding video is everyone asking where I am and the bride sitting outside in the car to the church of england wedding where I was expected to be size 8 in a gold fitted dress with the biggest hair do in the world. I had various bouquets and did various readings at the services. By the end of the summer I was joking to my family that I could start a business called "rent a bridesmaid".

As my brother and I spent hours coming up with ideas for the business we laughed at our own jokes - own dresses in various colours, no hymn book required, any denomination acceptable, own bouquets, willing to read from any gospel. "Been let down by your bridesmaid... call rent-a-bridesmaid". As the summer ended all the jokes about "always a bridesmaid never a bride" were solidified when my best friend gave me her bouquet rather than threw it into the crowd as she thought I needed it more than anyone else! The summer was over and relief crept through me... no more weddings to attend, no more stinky bins from the heat, no more blistered bulbous feet as I was back in my comfy boots so all that was left was the normal morning blues and my mum's love of yoghurt.

As we hit october I received a phone call from "Take a break" magazine. This very important, efficient sounding woman rang and told me that they wanted to do a 2 page spread on my business "Rent-a-bridesmaid". I didn't have the heart to tell her this was a joke as she asked for details of the website address. It turned out my mum had decided that the magazine would be interested in my idea. As I created my fake business out of my jokey emails with my brother the lady on the phone was delighted and interested. I fobbed her off saying the website was under construction and I would get back to her at a later date. After phoning my mum and demanding an explanation I was embarrassed to even think about it and left it at that....

"My mum was in the doctors surgery reading take a break and saw a picture of you as a bridesmaid saying you were going to start a business called rent a bridesmaid". My friend was laughing as she told me that her mum had brought the magazine home to show her. I rang my mum in a state of despair imagining all the various people i knew in doctor's surgeries all over the country reading about this embarrassing situation! My mum was thrilled! She told me that they had given her £75 for this little picture on the inside cover and a little explanation of how I was forever a bridesmaid... Oh the shame!

And so that is why I find summer irritating! Even my own jokes at my sad misfortune come back to haunt me and I am spending the whole winter cringing about the summer. It is exhausting way to live and so as I approach the summer I intend to sleep more. By sleeping more I will then be able to avoid any invitations to weddings or any other happy event and just live my life without the torture of it all!